19 Biggest Lessons from Reading 100 Books

I started reading non-fiction after hitting my rock bottom. I found people to look up to and saw that they were reading and learning constantly to better themselves. This inspired me to develop a reading and self improvement habit that I have continued for more than 10 years.

No single book has the ability to change your life. But the things you do, good or bad, over time, compound to extraordinary changes.

Here are some things that have stuck with me. (In no particular order)

1. Become interested in other people.

Once you start to see things from someone else’s view. You will have more empathy for other people. Connecting with others is what life is all about. You will not be successful in life or business without this.

2. The safe route comes with a lot of risk.

Go to college. Add to your 401k. Work a 9-5 until you are 65. This seems like the safer route. But there are a lot of risks in taking the normal path.

3. Personal development is the best way to save a relationship.

You can’t change other people. Start by reading non fictions books to discover solutions to your problems. Get your body in order. Your finances in check. Take control of your health. Start dressing nice around the house. Check in to life.

4. Feeding into sexual instincts makes you crave novelty.

Your animal self wants to mate with a variety of partners. When you reach sexual satisfaction, a cascade of events starts happening that turns you away from your partner. And make you crave novelty. If not a new partner, then some other stimulus to chase.

5. Beat procrastination by just doing the thing.

There is no answer to “How do I start?” or “What do I do next?”. You just need to clear the way for your brain to do it’s job. Open up your canvas and just begin.

6. Leaning into pain will set you free.

We are constantly running from pain and towards pleasure. In order to maintain homeostasis, your body will build tolerance and your pain/ pleasure set points will get all jacked up. Doing hard things is the only way to reset this balance.

7. Just be happy.

We can spend years seeking for answers, wanting and craving more, being unhappy with our situation. They day will never come when things are just right. Let go and just decide to be happy.

8. Take ownership of EVERYTHING.

There is no point of blaming others. To be a leader, you need to own everything. Even stuff that is not your fault.

9. Your mind is very good at getting things to happen that you want to happen.

Once you get out of your own way, you can accomplish great things. Do not underestimate your ability to figure things out.

10. Train your brain to focus by doing less.

Your ability to focus is greatly effected by your ability to let things go. Less is more in this case.

11. Set your goals over 3 months instead of yearly.

It’s almost impossible to plan effectively over a year. There are too many unknowns that can happen. Set shorter term goals and you will be able to plan down to the nitty-gritty details.

12. You can train a dog to do anything without being a dick.

A lot of people think you have to be mean to dogs in order to bend them to your will. Turns out, dogs will endure pain to get rewards. So not only is this ineffective, it’s downright bad for you and your dog. Have some compassion. Don’t be lazy. Do it the right way.

13. People have lived through some shitty situations.

Digging into history will give you some serious perspective. You don’t have to look far to see just how easy you have it. This perspective is essential.

14. You are the only one your kids can depend on. They constantly test you to make sure you will never abandon them.

Your child needs to know that you love them no matter what. Of course you love them but they do not always see it depending on how you act as a parent. Have compassion. You are on their team.

15. Religion is a plague on Humanity.

Belief is the most powerful force. Even more powerful than time. By default, people act according to their beliefs. And will do bad or stupid things without a second thought. We need to abandon this and be okay with not knowing.

16. Humans treat animals very poorly.

How do we have compassion for an insect or even plants in some cases? But we turn a blind eye on industries that experiment, torture, and kill animals with such great complexity? If you had a pet monkey, mouse, cow, chicken, pig, sheep, etc., you would bond with these animals and go through great lengths to make them happy and comfortable.

Is it cognitive dissonance? Fear of finding out the truth? Compassion is the most manly thing ever.

17. Don’t focus on what you can’t control.

We spend a great deal of energy and time worrying about the future or regretting the past. Start to filter out things that you have no control over. And lean into the things you can control. You will be much happier.

18. Do hard things to immunize yourself for when hard things happen.

We live comfortable lives. But things won’t always be that way. Probably for anyone. Find something hard to do. Or give up something you enjoy. Even just for a day. And when the time comes to face adversity, you will be a little bit more prepared then if you never left your comfort zone in the first place.

19. We may not have as much Free Will as we think.

Imagine Osama Bin Laden’s son becoming anything other than what he is. When and where you were born. Who you were raised by. And life circumstances greatly impact who you are, the way you think, and how you behave. We aren’t in as much control as we think.

But all is not lost. Understanding this will give you compassion not just for others, but for your own shortcomings as well.

If you made it this far…

Please consider giving me some feedback. I want to become a better writer and help others grow along with me. Feedback is invaluable for this goal.

Thanks for reading!

Nat Eliason's SEO Course

Things I learned for Nat Eliason’s SEO Course

Leveling up

• Start with an easy keyword
• Over time, adjust article for harder and harder keywords
• Long tail keywords with low competition
• Can change meta title for google to the harder keyword later
• Can only change the meta title unless there is something the content is missing that the broader keyword asks for.
• At first, pick something under 5,000 searches

You don’t need to spend time building backlinks. You can rank for keywords that aren’t even IN your articles. You don’t need to focus on keyword density. Focus on intent.

Google analytics and keyword planner are all that’s needed. They are completely free.

How to think about SEO

Google is for answering people’s questions Google knows more that SEO experts about how Google works Any ranking trick will be fixed

Your goal: Answer questions better than anyone else on the internet.

Step 1: Topic Research Step 2: Keyword research Step 3: Writing Content that Ranks Step 4: Promoting Content Step 5: Increasing Ranking in the Future

Topic Research

Is this something people are searching for? If Yes -> Existing Topic If No -> New Topic

Existing Topics

• High SEO Potential
• High SEO Competition

• Make sure to look at your rankings in incognito mode or it will show you searches based on your own browsing history.
• You can rank on words with high competition.

New Topics

• Something people aren’t searching for.
• Lower SEO Potential
• Low SEO Competition
• Make up a term or word to describe what you are talking about.
• (Examples: savable income, second degree dinners, stamena, etc.)
• Keyword research not neccesary

Keyword Research

Step 1: Come up with addressable keywords Step 2: Assess their keyword volume Step 3: Assess the competition Step 4: Pick your keyword

Step 1: Come up with addressable keywords

Organize information in a spreadsheet. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1XitO95OO6q3djdnOZpESaaK9xVcGKGv791mAL3IuRl0/edit?pli=1&gid=0#gid=0

List Possible keywords Subjectively rate how broad the keyword is

Step 2: Assess their keyword volume

Use Google keyword planner to add the search volume to the spreadsheet. View the recommended options and add relevant Keywords to your list.

Step 3: Assess the competition

New sites will be hard to rank for higher competition keywords. Ignore competition rating in Google keyword planner. Search for the keyword in Google Rank the competition in your spreadsheet based on the top sites that show up. Is there an article that directly addresses the question? If you see a lot of social media results that means there is a good chance it’s a low competition keyword.

Step 4: Pick your keyword

Don’t go after the hard keywords at first. Use the leveling up strategy to go for harder keywords. Set meta title tag for title in google You can level up just by changing the meta title, On adjust the content if the keyword calls for it Start with easy, more narrow, less competition keyword. Can level up to harder keywords multiple times after they are ranking

Part 3: Writing the Post

5 Principles of Great SEO

1. Answer their question
2. Provide the best answer
3. Provide a complete answer
4. Make it actionable
5. Overdeliver

Principle 1: Answer their Question

Answer the question Make it easy to find those answers with content menu or skimmability (Headings) Have a heading with the keyword

Principle 2: Provide the best answer

What did everyone else do to answer this? Search for the keyword and view the top results. What did they do and not do well?

Principle 3: Provide a complete answer

Figure out everything somebody could be looking for when they ask the question. Good SEO content is usually long because of this. (GOal is not to be long, it’s to fully answer the question)

Principle 4: Make it actionable

Are they going to need to go back to google for more answers? Make the reader ready to go with what they just read. What’s next? How can they do it? Add steps to doing the thing.

Principle 5: Overdeliver

Give them more than they expected when they showed up. Could be a free PDF, tools, or additional info or story in the article.

Structuring your articles for SEO

Easily readable (breaks, images, etc.) Shorter paragraphs, logical structure, fun and readable No keyword stuffing (have it in your headline) Include relevant links in the article. Link to other relevant content on your site. Link to high quality sources (research article, wikipedia, etc.) Takeaways, steps, action items at the end of your article. Make it easy for them to find what to do.

Creating Your Headline

If you don’t have a good headline then nobody will click on it. What people see when they go to google. Come up with 10-30 headlines that sound clickable and excited and also the most informative. Make sure Keyword is in the Headline

Part 4: Promotion

3 Keys to Content Promotion

• Promoting to your audience
• Promoting to others’ audiences
• Adding to your structure

Promoting to your audience

They want to hear from you Social media Email Groups you are part of (Forums, message boards) Automate as much as possible

Can automate with Zapier.

• Will share to all social media profiles automatically

Promoting to Other Audiences

Used to get an initial surge to get on Google’s radar. Reddit

• Find subreddit where your content will fit and post content there.
• Find communities that let you just drop a link.
• Can also make a discussion and provide info in the post and add links.
• Can talk about a high level overview of the article.

Message boards Emailing people mentioned or who might be interested (Hey I wrote this thing, I thought you would like it, I would love to hear your thoughts on it.) Don’t ask them to share it.

Adding to your structure

Add link to past articles that it may be helpful in. Have pages that collect themes on your site. Like a map of Content Link back in future articles (reference past articles in new ones) Add useful things.

Re optimize

Identify higher value keywords that it’s starting to rank for just a little bit. Re-word the headline to fit that keyword Repeat promotion as relevant How to identify higher value keywords

• Go to google analytics
• Go to Acquisition > Search Console > Queries
  • Can view queries that people are landing on your page by
  • Go to search console > landing pages and select the specific article and then view queries that it’s ranking for.
  • Can see position in search results here.
• Give article some time to settle in

Writing Off the Cuff

My favorite and by far easiest method of writing is writing off the cuff. You get your thoughts down and spring new thoughts to life. You are finding out what you know without referencing materials.

You are creating out of nothing. It is pure writing and creativity folded into one. We all have a “Muse” that will give to us whenever we ask.

All you have to do is start writing.

Writer’s block doesn’t exist.

Writer’s Block sucks. You don’t Know what to write next. You are stuck in limbo. But are you really stuck? You really can’t Think of ANYTHING to put down next?

Writer’s Block is a trick! Perhaps it’s An excuse cropping up to get you out of the zone.

Your thoughts never stop. So start there. What’s The first thing that comes to mind when you read your last sentence?

Just write that down and move on. Follow your train of thought to find out who you really are.

And to find out what you really have to say.

The first draft is always garbage.

Live it. Accept it. Once you do. It doesn’t matter what you write. Just put down whatever comes to your mind. No matter how bad it seems. You will touch up later.

Writers block doesn’t even exist. It’s Just a concept. You aren’t writing because you can’t think of anything.

It’s because you are a perfectionist. You are unwilling to put down “garbage” on a piece of paper.

Just keep going…

Don’t Stop. You have set aside this time to create. And creating is what gets your blood flowing. It’s The reason you are alive.

Distractions are going to try and stop you. They are the enemy. And this is how you win.

Stay on the course. The wind is your muse and your sail is your unrelenting determination.

The ocean wants to keep your from going anywhere. It can’t do this if you do not will it.

The conclusion doesn’t matter.

You have to end your writing. But this is not the end. It is actually a new beginning for your reader. You have given them your best.

Remind them what you said and give them a plan of what is next. You just changed a life forever. No matter how big or small of a change.

This is your impact. This is why you are here.